The Dallas Black Giants were professional and semi-professional baseball teams based in

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

which played in the

Negro leagues The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...

. They were active on and off from 1908 to 1949. Among the leagues that the Black Giants played for were the

Texas Colored League The Texas Colored League was a minor league Negro baseball league organized in 1919 and lasted until 1926. The league did not play a schedule in 1922. The league was revived three years later in 1929 as the Texas–Oklahoma–Louisiana League a ...

(1916), the

Negro Texas League The Texas Negro League was a Negro baseball league organized in 1924 and lasted until 1949. Teams (Teams listed in alphabetical order) 1949 Birmingham Blues Ft. Worth GiantsHot Springs New Orleans Creoles Oklahoma City Braves Shreveport TigersS ...

(1920–27, 1930), the Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana League (1929), the Colored Texas League (1931), and - after two years of inactivity in 1936 & 1937—the Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana League (1938). They played their home games at the original Gardner Park prior to it burning down, Riverside Park and Steer Stadium (aka

Burnett Field Burnett Field, in Dallas, Texas, was home to several minor league baseball clubs from 1924 to 1964. The ballpark sat 10,500 fans. It was located at 1500 East Jefferson Boulevard (west, first base), Brazos Street (north, third base); Colorado Boul ...

). In the 1920s and 1930s, live jazz was featured during the games. Beauty contests became a feature in games during the 1930s. One of the best known players on the Black Giants was shortstop

Ernie Banks Ernest Banks (January 31, 1931 – January 23, 2015), nicknamed "Mr. Cub" and "Mr. Sunshine", was an American professional baseball player who starred in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a shortstop and first baseman for the Chicago Cubs between ...

who would go on to become a star in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

for the Chicago Cubs. An infamous player was left-handed pitching star Dave Brown who got into involved in a highway robbery. Reportedly a fugitive, Chicago American Giants'

Rube Foster Andrew "Rube" Foster (September 17, 1879 – December 9, 1930) was an American baseball player, manager, and executive in the Negro leagues. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981. Foster, considered by historians to have been per ...

paid $20,000 for Brown's parole and he became a member of Foster's

Chicago American Giants The Chicago American Giants were a Chicago-based Negro league baseball team. From 1910 until the mid-1930s, the American Giants were the most dominant team in black baseball. Owned and managed from 1911 to 1926 by player-manager Andrew "Rube" F ...

. In 1908, the Black Giants lost the state championship losing deciding game five to the San Antonio Black Bronchos. The 1922 team advanced to the Colored Dixie Series heralded on billboards around the city as "a little World Series." The

Memphis Red Sox The Memphis Red Sox were an American Negro league baseball team that was active from 1920 to 1959. Originally named the Barber College Baseball Club, the team was initially owned and operated by Arthur P. Martin, a local Memphis barber. In the la ...

took the series six games to three. The largest turnout for a game was between the

Kansas City Monarchs The Kansas City Monarchs were the longest-running franchise in the history of baseball's Negro leagues. Operating in Kansas City, Missouri, and owned by J. L. Wilkinson, they were charter members of the Negro National League from 1920 to 19 ...

and the Black Giants on April 21, 1935, when the Monarchs swept a double-header from Dallas. The semi-pro Dallas Green Monarchs was the city's next pro baseball team playing from 1940 to 1947 and 1953. But the Dallas Black Giants returned to field a 1949 team that was considered semi-pro and included Bill Blair (CF/pitcher-manager); Woody Culton, first base;

, second base; Carl Williams, shortstop; Frank Adams, third base; Raymond Lott, LF; Didim Wright, RF; starting pitchers: Eddie "Shine" Douglas, Leonard Johnson; and extras E.Z. Parker and Curtis Searcy."Negro Club Opens with Amarillo 9." ''Dallas Morning News'', 1 May 1949, p. 5 That team would play at Burnett Field as would two visiting teams who would play in official American Negro Professional League games. The team went out of existence at year's end.

References

{{Reflist Negro league baseball teams Defunct baseball teams in Texas Baseball teams disestablished in 1949 Baseball teams established in 1908

See also

References